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Saturday, March 16, 2019

We woke up this morning to an unusual March snow shower in Deming, befitting a day much earlier in the winter. I ventured out to the post office and book shop down the road in order to give myself a taste of a weekend before retreating to my garage workspace to prepare for a long day tomorrow, covering the 30th memorial Bataan Death March.

Which, of course, I am further postponing by blowing the dust off this blog, but only for a brief announcement.

The Gannett company, which owns the Deming Headlight and Las Cruces Sun-News, is giving opinion pages a re-think, mainly of reducing them drastically. That includes editorials, which give a community's newspaper its voice. Some papers are eliminating these entirely.

For now, the Desert Sage column has a space on the shrinking iceberg, but the melt is underway.

To review, Desert Sage is an opinion column that originated on the Deming Headlight's opinion page in July of 2001. The author was Win Mott, a local Anglican bishop who lived and pastored in Luna and Grant counties before retiring and moving to Canada.

Win aimed for a slower, more thoughtful read, including philosophical and occasionally pastoral takes on the news of the day, and local news in particular. He wrote weekly until 2013, when he began sharing the column with a few other locals: Lynn Olson, Richard Thatcher, and me. From time to time there were other "pinch hitters" for the column, like Paul Bringman. I handed in 1-2 columns a month.

Late in the summer of 2014, Win and Headlight editor Bill Armendariz invited me to take over the weekly deadline, Win moved on, and the Headlight began paying me. It was in 2017 that I got hired on as a news reporter, and I have kept the column going.

Under my byline, Desert Sage has turned more to state and national affairs, but maintains the tone of an amused, if often disappointed, desert denizen who reads, writes, and thinks. (And uses Oxford commas on his own time.)

It is hard to assess how large an audience the column has, but in the online universe that is Gannett's focus, its reach is small.

There are exceptions. Most recently, after my county joined other New Mexico counties in jumping in with the "constitutional sheriff" movement, my message of disapproval got some traffic and attracted more hate mail than usual. So did my caution about a large oil and gas discovery in the Permian Basin.

Other times, I write about humanities-based topics, like handwriting or writing letters, local theatre or education. These usually vanish into the louder streams of the worldwide web but they are very much part of the column's unique approach. It is my view that the crazy headline-grabbing stories follow from a culture that approaches education, the humanities, and the arts as it does.

In any case, it continues for now as a weekly print column and I have just begun, with KRWG Public Media, a weekly audio version. The first one aired last week and is available on KRWG's website.

My column this week, about the strange presidential announcement by Beto O'Rourke via Vanity Fair magazine, will be heard and posted sometime next week, one week behind publication in the Sun-News.

It also still appears in the Deming Headlight, of course, where Desert Sage began nearly 18 years ago.

This is the preferred narrative of "what happened" among supporters of the major party that lost the election as well as most political columnists working in dominant news media. Selfish voters who exercised their freedom of their choice to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton. This is the "punching left" narrative.

We are weeks away from the 2018 elections and it might be time to stop indulging this narrative. It presents a poor analysis of what happened, or none at all.

Data: Some 35 million people voted for Trump. An even greater number
voted for Hillary Clinton, but she lost the electoral vote in a few crucial states.
Democratic operatives in two of those states (Michigan and Wisconsin) have spoken to press about how the campaign neglected their states because the campaign and party presumed they
were in the bag.

Still another factor neglected in the
"left-punching" analysis is the number of voters who did not vote (or were
prevented from voting). Pew Research did excellent work on this. In fairness, the tweet quoted above does include non-voters in its derision, but implies no interest in why people aren't voting. (They're just idiots.) The non-voter
played a much greater factor in the election result than the much smaller
number who voted for neither the Republican or Democratic candidates.

From a partisan standpoint, I suppose I understand the purpose of this
narrative: punch the left, marginalize them and bully the rest into voting for
the party. This is still preferred by a plurality to engaging in politics with them, incorporating their
concerns into a successful platform and in choice of candidates - which, in
fairness to the Democrats, they attempted to do during the platform phase of the 2016 campaign, when
Bernie Sanders was ascendant.

From an analytical standpoint, punching left (or punching libertarians,
wherever you place them) seems to ignore much larger factors in what happened. From a democratic standpoint, it seems to be demonizing people for exercising
their right to make their own choice about for whom to vote.

I don't need the logic of strategic voting explained to me. I understand it
fully well, I just consider it anti-democratic and a symptom of an unjust system that requires
change. I'm not willing to call people names who actually do their job,
show up at a polling place, and cast a ballot. Besides which, clearly a
significant number of voters were responding to "strategic voting" by
choosing third-party or - in far greater numbers - refusing to participate.

There is a tendency to think, due to the strategic voting issue, that Democrats
are entitled to everybody's vote who is not a GOP supporter. The data
suggests to me that party would be wise to reconsider that attitude, and start
listening to the younger generation of voters.

There may very well be a backlash in 2018 that favors Democrats, but relying on duopolistic entitlement isn't going to carry them in 2020 - if that election even happens.

And no, truly, I don't take a 2020 election for granted on this day in 2018. A very dangerous person occupies the presidency, and the party holding a majority is clearly pledged to protect him and its own power. I have heard him plainly lay out an argument for delegitimizing federal elections and test popular support for delaying them.

We are an effective two-party system and neither party is responding aptly to our present crisis.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Yesterday, I put in a little Saturday overtime at the Las Cruces Sun News to finish up a story and participate in an editorial board interview with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich. When I plugged my laptop into the docking station and attempted to sign in, I got a message saying, "Your account has been disabled."

My initial reaction was a sensation of dropping calmly into my gut: There it is, I've been fired.
Congenitally unable to earn a paycheck in any profession where I am secure, it was the first and most obvious theory to explain my inability to log on. It was soon followed by a phone call to the Gannett company's tech support assuring me that this was a widespread problem that day, to hold tight, and I'd be reconciled to the USA Today network systems in a jiffy. And so I was.

It has been more than 17 months since I was offered a job as a news reporter, having no background in journalism. As odd as that is, it also makes sense by certain measures. I can write, and enjoy writing; I am curious, which encourages me to check things out. And I am obviously unafraid of entering insecure and unpopular professions.

After a year at the Deming Headlight, I got tapped to go and report at the Sun News, another Gannett property. I have been there since June, reporting mainly on local businesses and public education while continuing to write the "Desert Sage" column. I have also done some government reporting and other stories.

And technical problems notwithstanding, I have yet to be fired. My theatrical activity has been drastically curtailed and I now earn my bacon, surprisingly, by writing - which I've always thought of as my father's game.

I don't trust there is any job security but as long as I'm here I'm trying to figure out how to do it well and do some good before my account is disabled on purpose. There will be occasional theatrical performances, perhaps, but these will be more rare.

Monday, May 28, 2018

What does "patriotism" mean? What does it look like? How do we "do" it?

It's Memorial Day and just feet from my study there is an American Legion post. There have already been services today in Deming, in honor of those we have sent to war, those who fell, those who were injured, those who lost dear ones in war.

Attendance at these services is not compulsory, but there are things we are expected to say or assent to in silence; and there are things we cannot say.

We are expected to state or silently assent to the notion that all of America's wars are fought in defense of "our freedoms." I can understand this pressure, because it is obscene to think that our young men and women who devote themselves to military service and promise to say yes to their government's orders would ever be misused.

It is taboo to state that we might honor combat veterans by reducing our military aggression, deploying them on more peaceful missions, and sending far fewer people into harm's way.

I will not be accused of disloyalty or disrespect for the troops in saying that I would like a patriotism that is about building community, addressing past wrongs (as a country built on displacement and extermination of indigenous peoples and human bondage - a legacy that is indelible), and building a viable society whose holidays, anthems, and social customs all reinforce an expansive commitment to justice, humane regard for all, and to leaving a beautiful place for coming generations.

Likewise I would like one day to see Memorial Day as a day that remembers a time when America evolved from a country that sent its children to wage wars of American dominance generation after generation, until a new generation redefined America's mission and purpose in the world.

It begins with our ability to imagine. So my Desert Sagey advice this morning is, whether you take a moment to thank a veteran (a very good thing to do any day of the year) or salute a flag or whatnot, to imagine what else might be possible, what more, what better.

Friday, May 04, 2018

10,000 people who responded - half of the survey - reported feelings of loneliness and isolation. 54 percent said they feel nobody knows them well. 2 out of 5 said they lack companionship and meaningful relationships. Previous studies have shown similar findings, and yet this one indicates that the problem is more severe with the younger generation.

There are some unsurprising correlations. People reporting more in-person interactions tend to score as less lonely. Work-life balance is also correlative: working too much or too little contributes to isolation, since many of our daily relationships reside in workplaces. Time spent on social media or staring at screens is associated with greater isolation.

There are cultural dimensions the study does not address.

We are, as Wendell Berry put it, a "footloose" culture, oriented around individualist models of progress and achievement, routinely moving away from family and friends to pursue personal opportunity. (Berry later revised his comment to say we are "wheel-loose.")

On one hand, we enjoy tremendous personal freedom. On the other hand, it is considered entirely normal to pick up and leave the people you love behind for months, years, or even forever, for a job or some other personal opportunity.

I've done this several times myself, and if you were to ask me, "Where are you from?" I would struggle to answer you. I am honestly not sure anymore. I know where I grew up, of course, but I left that place 18 years ago and have only paid rare, brief visits since, despite feeling like I miss it. I've lived in Chicago, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, and Deming. Where the heck do I belong? Couldn't tell ya.

If 54 percent of this one survey said "no one knows them well," a greater percentage than said they lack companionship or meaningful relationships, we are looking at a number of people who feel unknown even to what companions they have. They may even refer to some of these people, whom they say do not know them well, as "friends" in the casual manner we use the word.

On average, we move somewhere every few years: Americans average more than 11 moves in their lifetime. Tens of millions every year. That's a mass migration event every year.

There is also a medical reality here: social connection is related to better mental and physical health. If the conversation is primarily medical, however, we risk falling into a kind of scientism where we think about human connection as a treatment plan, with statistics and goals particular to improving some metric: "My social connection index didn't go up this month, I need to get out there and talk to somebody!" That wouldn't really be social connection.

We've done this with physical exercise: it's good to get out and walk or run or play with the kids and secondary to that it's good for your heart; if you're out for a walk or talking with your child and half of you is thinking about your heart rate or your cholesterol or your distance, half of you is not really doing what you're doing.

I even know someone who put her fitbit on a kid to help her meet her goal - saw saw the irony, but she did it. Because GOAL.

Anyway, what it boils down to is, a lot of people are unhappy, don't have the kind of friendships that can help them, and we barely even have a vocabulary allowing us to talk about it.

The picture that emerges is that a lot of us don't know where, or to whom, we belong, or even where and with whom we are now. How, then, would it be possible to know oneself?

Sunday, April 29, 2018

The annual mixer between the White House Correspondents Association, federal officials, high-profile journalists, and other celebrities is a gruesome spectacle and it would be well to retire it.

In a recurring pattern, the dinner was held last night, a comedian delivered a hard-hitting roast-style monologue, and the morning after the media is clucking about whether said comedian went too far.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's what a roast is. A roast is a series of jokes that go a bit too far. It isn't my cup of tea, either. Reading over comedian Michelle Wolf's routine, I see some jokes about the personal appearance of White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. [EDIT: Strangely, the one that's getting the most attention, about "burning facts" and using the ash as eye makeup, isn't really a joke about her appearance - it's very clearly a joke about the administration's constant lying.]

I don't think I could attend a roast, even if I wasn't the one being roasted. My anxiety on behalf of the person being targeted would be overwhelming - unless it was clear they were in on the joke, but when they are in front of people being skewered the social pressure is to "be a sport" and take the beating, making it hard to judge whether they are truly all right. Here, again, the matter of consent.

On the other hand, where can we ground a discussion of personal cruelty, when this involves an administration that got itself elected on hate speech directed at Mexicans and Muslims, and an official who has repeatedly - routinely - misled the public about the administration that has exhibited pettiness and cruelty as a matter of routine? And to whom do we speak of decency, after 65 million Americans voted for such a person?

As a general principle, it would be incompatible with my public function as a journalist to be so chummy with the powerful. In my own local reporting, my relationships with elected officials are cordial, but there is a line I observe.

Beside that general principle, the White House Correspondents Dinner itself is a repulsive enterprise.

The first one was a small gathering of about 50 newspaper people and some aides to President Harding. With Coolidge, Presidents began attending, and the thing grew in size and prominence. There is a morning-of brunch for writers and participants that is seen as a high-status invite. The dinner is now a televised spectacle and part of a complex and deeply corrupt relationship between some of our top news organizations and the politically powerful.

First there is a spectacle of journalists yokking it up with the powerful people they are supposed to be reporting about, in a luxurious setting. Then a comedian gets up and roasts the President, other people present, and the media generally. Then the media criticizes the comedian over jokes that made anyone - especially the press - uncomfortable. Like this, from Stephen Colbert's famous monologue in 2006:

Over the last five years, you people were so good over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out.

Yet I also remember Colbert as the comedian who made a cutesy video with Henry Kissinger - instead of placing the war criminal under a citizen's arrest. Maybe that would be a lot to ask. But how about not presenting Kissinger as a welcome, avuncular figure?

Or this, from Michelle Wolf last night:

You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn't sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric, but he has helped you. He's helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster, and now you're profiting off of him. And if you're gonna profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because he doesn't have any.

Predictably, this morning a lot of the media outlets present at the event are debating Wolf's "tone."

She closed her routine with a reminder that the city of Flint still doesn't have potable water for its populace. For whatever that's worth. A sad, defiant parting gesture toward one of many neglected travesties - neglected by both camps represented at this glitzy event. Flint is a disaster on the scale of a hurricane, and a political scandal that should have toppled Michigan's Governor. Instead, the Mayor of that city is filing lawsuits to get the state's attention. Moreover, the issue of lead infiltration into drinking water is widespread across the United States - a matter deserving of a great deal of attention, surely at least a tenth as much attention as the national media devotes to gossiping about what the Mueller investigation might dig up (and whether we will ever see the rumored piss video). But Flint might as well be in Yemen.

Anyway, back to last night's red-carpet affair.

One defense of the WHCD boils down to American exceptionalism. Isn't it great, some say (here's an example), that in our great country, we can mock our commander-in-chief and the comedian won't get beheaded? You won't see Putin or Erdogan putting up with that. God bless America.

According to my reading of the Declaration of Independence, that doesn't make us exceptional. The right to freedom of speech and to petition our leaders (or make jokes about them) is self-evident and not uniquely "American." It is, therefore, not exceptional. It is the floor.

Polls indicate public trust in news organizations and journalists is at a dismal low. It may not help to see journalists mixing it up in luxury with the ruling elite. Add to that, the fact that these dinners often give the podium to sitting Presidents or other officials who joke about their work - which involves mass deception and policies that cause human harm. We've had jokes about fruitless searches for weapons of mass destruction. We've had jokes about people suffering and dying. We've had jokes that punch down.

Why is anybody participating in that? Let's stick a silver-plated fork in this thing.

Friday, March 23, 2018

What follows here are some sentences. Some will be short and uncomplicated. A few will be long, complex, and angry.

Before I vent some opprobrium, I reflect with respect on a local kid, a hometown war hero who won a gold medal with the U.S. Paralympic team at the winter games in PyeongChang, South Korea last weekend.

There is a good deal of pride in this community for a most impressive and determined man.

The call to service is unmistakable to those who feel it, and in that chapter of my life when I felt it and looked up my local Navy recruiter, what stopped me was the awful knowledge of what my country does with those who are drawn to serve. This was the era of the Panama invasion and the Persian Gulf War, when I was using my time in college to learn about the middle-east and our relationships with dictators around the world as well as monarchs in oil states.

Instead of joining the Navy, I interned at War Resisters League and got involved in political organizing. Service takes various forms.

However much I condemn the imperial violence of my country of birth, among the finest people I've met are some who signed up to serve without cynicism or guile, with a sincere belief in service.

To see the state deploy those led by such admirable notions, for base ends, roils my blood.

Like this young man in Deming who now competes with distinction in the paralympics.

Like a man I knew at Trinity Rep, a Persian Gulf War vet who uses theatre to help other combat veterans heal and thrive.

Like the man I met who survived the siege of Fallujah - the few things he was willing to describe made me terrified for what he didn't.

Like men and women I have met after performing An Iliad, who have paid me the honor of sharing some of themselves, where they had been and of their homecomings.

People who deserve their own individual sentences and much more.

George W. Bush took this local son, the one who "medalled" last weekend, a youth who had pledged his physical strength and intellectual alacrity to serve his country, and George W. Bush sent that young man to Iraq where a grenade changed his life but happily did not end it.

Yes, the Iraq War, this pox on the world, whose 15th anniversary passed this week without fanfare, a most nauseous anniversary in remembrance of a war built on lies, an illegal war of aggression supported by Democrats as well as Republicans, a "decision point" (to use a W-esque phrase) with economic, social, and ecological consequences that will touch generations yet unborn, that destabilized a region already tormented and paved a doctrine of endless war and the American executive's right to wage death as it pleases without meaningful Congressional oversight, popular support, without even taxation to pay for it (the Iraq War being funded through deficit spending), the policy we have to thank for ISIS and the legitimization of extremists who still advise presidents and give well-attended and well-compensated speeches about how to rule the world.

Yes, that was one sentence. I can only speak of this war in long sentences with clauses stacking my outrage like spent nuclear rods glowing poison.

When George W. Bush is trotted out to chat about his paintings instead of being cuffed and sent to the Hague to answer for what he has done to the planet, when Condi Rice or other figures from that administration are treated like honorable people instead of notorious war criminals and apologists for torture worthy only of public shame, when the Democrats who voted for that war and defended their votes for years are still spoken of as somehow being desirable candidates for the Presidency, I feel glowing hot bile in my throat for all the young men and women whose good faith and notions of service were put to such "use."

Yep, that was another really long sentence. If you read it out loud, spikes may shoot out of it, like a literary goathead. Such is the language I would hurl in the presence of those who pushed this policy. That's how much disdain I feel for the officials of that era. May shame leech on them and the leeches turn into hundreds of little screens playing biographical movies singing the stories of all the people who lost lives, families, communities and society, and personal opportunity for imperial aims, and all those paying the check for that policy even today.

Damn them all. Shame them out of public service. Why do we play along with the notion that these are respectable and trustworthy statesmen and public servants?

Throw tomatoes at them. It's not like they'll lose their limbs or anything.